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The high UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)* opened last week with expert discussions and today decision-makers started arriving. Negotiators from all regions will address which key elements should be included in a global legally binding agreement. The preparations for defining Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) and financial pledges from participating countries will form the basis for the crucial Paris UN climate conference to take place in December 2015.

S&D vice-president Kathleen Van Brempt MEP said:

"Last November NASA measured the highest CO2 concentrations in 3 million years. If we want to keep climate change below 2 degrees celsius, it is now or never. Europe should take the lead."

S&D MEP and co-author of the European Parliament’s resolution on the Lima summit Jo Leinen said:

"The crucial points in Lima are: developed countries want to see more commitments from developing countries on mitigation and poorer nations expect more money for climate finance from industrialised countries. Both sides have to leave their barricades and join the efforts to fight climate change.”

At a recent pledging conference held in Berlin, Germany, countries made pledges towards the initial capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund totaling nearly $9.3 billion USD. Later pledges brought this figure closer to $10 billion.

* The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP), taking place in Lima until 12 December, brings together the 196 parties to the UNFCCC, which is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Delegates will attempt to draft a new universal treaty, which would enter force by 2020.

To find out more about the conference, follow our MEPs via Twitter @TheProgressives, with #COP20.